These amazing primitive mammals

These amazing primitive mammals

Remained in the shadow of history
The first mammals appeared on earth 265 million years ago, 10 million years after the first dinosaurs. However, for the first 160 million years, when the dinosaurs ruled, they remained in the shadow of history. About 300 million years ago, the ancient ancestors of reptile mammals lived terapsils. They are very similar to us.

The very first ancestor of modern mammals

was found by paleontologists in deposits of 570 million years old, in southern China. One group of scientists discovered primitive sponges, the other - embryos on early stages development, which have the same structure as all modern mammals.

oldest mammal

Megazostrodon (1966), found at Taba Litau, Lesotho, estimated to be 190,000,000 years old.

The oldest mammals

The oldest mammal-like animal with tusks
Large tusks were evidence of the sexual division of land animals. The oldest animal with tusks lived in Europe before the advent of dinosaurs. It was a male Diictodon, a barrel-like herbivore, had two tusks descending from the lower jaw. The age of its remains is 252-260 million years. Diictodon appeared in the late Permian period Paleozoic era, at least 30 million years before dinosaurs arose. It belonged to a group of mammal-like reptiles and was an evolutionary relative of the animals from which mammals later evolved. In length, it reached 70-80 centimeters.

Why did Diictodon need tusks?

These fangs were used as weapons - perhaps in mating rituals or physical encounters. They were not used to obtain food, since females did not have them. They also could not dig or dig the ground - since no signs of wear were found at the ends. It seems that the tusks became longer, wider and thicker as the animals aged, but if the animal lost them (for example, in a fight), new ones did not grow. All this suggests that the tusks were part of the combat equipment.

Mastodon

Mastodons (proboscis), who lived in the Pleistocene, were the size of an elephant; they lived on all continents.

Ancestor of elephants and rhinos

Scientists know of six new varieties of large prehistoric mammals that roamed the highlands of Ethiopia 27 million years ago. These include the ancient ancestor of the elephant and the rhinoceros-like animal. These are Africa's own mammals, which became extinct, unable to withstand the competition with Eurasian lions, tigers, hippos, hyenas and antelopes.

Mastodon - the largest mammal of the glaciation

Elephantine Mastodon americanus lived in North America during the Pleistocene until the end of the glaciation. The length of his body was 4.5 m, the length at the shoulders was 2-3 m. This animal died out due to climate warming. It belonged to the family Mammutidae, originating from North Africa, which spread to Eurasia and North America 15 million years ago. It got its name from the "tooth" ("nipple tooth"). It is known that the mastodons that lived in the middle of the glaciation era were smaller in size than their counterparts who lived later in the forests. Later mastodons adapted to life in coniferous forests and swamps. They used their tusks to break tree branches. The tusks of the mastodon were short and straight, and the teeth were sharp. The females were smaller than the males, their tusks were also smaller and lighter. They were covered with wool with a thick undercoat (5-18 cm long). Fossils of mastodons have been found in the North of the USA and Canada. The honor of discovering this animal belongs to Baron Cuvier.

Dark period in African history

It falls on the time of 24-32 million years ago. It was then that the prehistoric continent known as Afroarabia began to connect with Eurasia. After this "contact" immigrants settled in Africa - lions, tigers, hippos, hyenas and antelopes. Before the conjunction took place, Africa developed many of its own mammals. They died out without ever seeing Eurasia.

cave lion

Scientists have found drawings and bones of cave lions in the grottoes of Spain, France, England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Algeria and Syria. There was a time when lions lived not only in Africa, but also on the Arabian Peninsula. In Persia, Northwestern India, and even in Turkey, Greece, the Caucasus and the lower reaches of the Don. In Ukraine, near Odessa, Tiraspol, Kiveom, and even in the Urals and in the Perm region, traces of lions were found.

Saber-toothed tiger - Smilidon californicus

... inhabited North America(California) and South America (Argentina) in the Late Pleistocene. He had a body 1.2 m long and a short tail, like manul cats. A pair of long fangs of the upper jaw helped to cope with prey. His shoulders and neck were muscular. attacked saber-toothed tigers on slow-moving prey, as they needed time to sink their huge teeth into the victim. That is the hypothesis.

Fangs 40 cm

At saber-toothed tigers - Smilodon fatalis there were terrible 40-centimeter fangs.

Scull mahairoda- this is also called saber-toothed tigers, which lived for about two million years. Was sold in Los Angeles for 200 thousand dollars.

Ancient elephants were fishing

Forty kilometers from Munich, fragments of the skeleton of a little-studied subspecies of elephants that lived on Earth 15 million years ago were found. His tusks were rounded, with which he could dig up plants and even catch fish.

ancient elephant

Was a scary animal Fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of prehistoric elephant ancestor found on Crete Deinotherium gigantissimum, whose fangs went down from the chin. The growth of the animal reached 4.5 meters, and he was the most major representative doslon groups. Its remains are about 7 million years old. Until now, his remains have been found mainly in Central Europe. Fassoulas suggests that these creatures reached Crete from Asia Minor, crossing the Aegean Sea and visiting the islands of Rhodes and Karpathos on their way. Apparently, primitive elephants could swim long distances in search of food.

Myths turned ancient elephants into cyclops

The remains of ancient elephants have long been found in mainland Greece. This suggested that the ancient Greeks made these animals part of their mythology. A large hole in the center of their skull - nasal cavity, hidden by a trunk in a living elephant, could become a source of stories about cyclops, mythical giants with one eye, mentioned in Homer's Odyssey and other works.

Elephants paleoloxodon, whose growth exceeded 3 meters, lived tens of thousands of years ago (during the Pleistocene epoch) in a cold climate zone in what is now northeastern China and Japan.

The evolution of ancient elephants can be traced by the change in molars.

Mastodon had small, plank teeth (Mastodon "breast-toothed") with three to four teeth, not too prominent. Stegodon, the immediate ancestor of modern elephants, had roof-toothed teeth and were already much larger than the mastodon. Primitive elephants Primelephas, which included Stegodon, gave rise to later extinct mammoths Mammoths and two modern species Loxodonta and Elephas.

Stegodon - pygmy elephant

Lived on the island of Flores (Indonesia).

Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)

... this well-known contemporary of the glacial era (late Pleistocene) was reliably protected from the cold by a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and long hair. A hump with reserves of fat was located immediately behind his majestic head. The mammoth was inferior in size to other members of the family, the height at the withers was 2.7 m. Mammoths grazed in the tundra, eating low vegetation, which they had to get with tusks right from under the snow. Known from remains. Found in Siberia and Alaska, as well as from rock carvings in caves in Spain and France, where primitive artists left evidence of their encounters with mammoths.

What were the teeth of a mammoth

Mammoth species Mammuthus planifrons and Mammuthus meridionalis known to us had teeth with 12 and 14 teeth, respectively, and woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius had teeth with 27 teeth, which was due to the peculiarity of its diet.

Herds of mammoths grazed in Siberia

DNA obtained from excavations in Siberia shows that in the past herds of mammoths grazed in the flourishing tundra. However, 11 thousand years ago, as a result of climate change, pastures began to disappear, which could have caused the disappearance of some animals.

Origin of Predators

Predatory animals descend from primitive insectivores Cretaceous. The primitive carnivores Creodotita are closely related to them, constituting a special extinct suborder of carnivores, numerous in the Paleocene, reaching their peak in the Eocene and disappearing in the Miocene. In the Miacidae family, they are small animals with an elongated body, short legs, a long tail, and a fairly large brain. Miacids lived in forests, on trees and looked very much like real predatory animals.

The first small representatives of the predatory order By appearance and way of life reminiscent of civet or martens, appeared in the upper Eocene. In the Oligocene, carnivores occupied a dominant position among other terrestrial carnivorous animals and reached such a diversity that all the main seven families that exist to this day are outlined among them.

The canine family is considered the most ancient.. Already in the Upper Eocene, North America and Europe were inhabited by primitive dogs, in many respects rather similar to viverras or martens. In the Upper Tertiary time, the initial adaptive types, from which modern genera of dogs, foxes, etc. developed in the Upper Miocene and Pliocene. From the ancient canines, a family of raccoons close to them originated. In the Miocene and Pliocene it was common not only in America and Asia, as it is now, but also in Europe.

cave bear

The bear family belongs to the same group as the canine. It arose in the middle Miocene, and in the Pleistocene bears appeared, belonging to the modern genus of bears (Ursus), but distinguished by their huge size. Cave bears that lived in the Pleistocene had a body length of about 3 m; they lived in Eurasia.

Kunyi - the latest group

The marten family arose in the Oligocene. By the Miocene, among them, the main systematic groups associated with various areas of adaptation to the environment and different lifestyles. Many species and genera of mustelids became extinct in the Tertiary and Quaternary periods.

Ancient vivver

The group of viverrids from the predatory order is the most ancient of its modern relatives of the suborder Aeluroidea (or Feloidea). . In the Oligocene and even later, viverras differed not only in a variety of forms, but also in a much more extensive distribution than now. They were widely represented in the territories of Europe and Asia, but absent in America. At the end of the Miocene, hyenas branched off from the viverrid family. Their most ancient representatives were very similar to their ancestors - civet, but later, as they switched to carrion, they acquired modern characteristic adaptive features. The most specialized carnivorous family felids, apparently, arose at the end of the Eocene, and in the Oligocene reached great diversity and wide distribution.

Primal wolf Canis lupus

A relative of modern timber wolves lived in the European forests of the Pleistocene era. Wolves gathered in packs to hunt. Adult wolves reached a length of 2.5 m (6 feet), and a height at the withers - 1.3 m (3 feet). ate small mammals sometimes large ones. ancient ancestor marsupials was the size of a mouse The skeleton of a creature found in the mountains of China, which is considered the most ancient ancestor of modern marsupials- opossums, kangaroos, koalas and others. The remains are 125 million years old - they are 15 million years older than the previous finds of scientists. In addition to the skeleton, clear prints of fur and fabrics were found. All this made it possible to reconstruct the appearance ancient creature. The animal that lived with the dinosaurs was small - about the size of a mouse: about 15 centimeters long and weighing about 30 grams. The structure of the limbs indicates that the creature could climb trees.

common ancestor

All predatory animals of Madagascar had one common ancestor that lived on African continent before he hit the island 18 - 24 million years ago. He crossed the water barrier separating the island from the African coast.

Condylartr - the ancestor of the hippopotamus
The first species of hippos appeared 54 million years ago, during the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era. Like other ungulates, the genus of hippos, or hippopotamuses (Hippopotamidae) descended from the ancient animal condylartra.

From the life of ancient hippos

Fossilized bones of two ancient hippos were discovered in Norfolk (England). Their age is estimated at 450 thousand years (there is reason to believe that they may be 50-200 thousand years older). Hippos weighed six to seven tons - about half the size of their modern descendants. They had unusual eyes - they served as periscopes after diving under water. In the ground, they lay next to the remains of a hyena, a horse, fish, and several rodents. Apparently, the hippos died of natural causes, and their bones were gnawed by hyenas. All these animals inhabited these places at a time when the Norfolk area was inhabited by a mixture of familiar plants and animals and more exotic species, now more common in the African savannah. Average Pleistocene, average temperature was about two degrees higher than now.

Cave bear (Arctodus simus) lived during the Pleistocene.

The primitive rodent was the size of a bull

In the semi-desert of Venezuela, they discovered the fossilized remains of a creature that, in their opinion, was the most large rodent throughout history. It weighed about 700 kg, reaching a length of 2.5 meters (excluding the tail). His remains were found back in 2000 in one of the swamps of Venezuela, 400 km west of the country's capital, Caracas. The formal name of this rodent is Phoberomys pattersoni, and the unofficial Goya. According to scientists, he lived 6-8 million years ago in swampy forests, when South America was isolated from the rest of the world. The herbivore Goya had a large tail that allowed him to balance on his hind legs to watch for predators. And the rodent had plenty of enemies: 10-meter crocodiles, marsupial cats, giant birds of prey. They killed him, after all.

Primitive bull - Bos primigenus

May be considered the ancestor of modern cattle. It inhabited North Africa, Europe and Asia from the Pleistocene era until the 10th century AD. The bull was first domesticated 6,000 years ago, the last bulls died out in the 17th century AD. The length of the bull was about 3 m.

Very ancient cats

25 million years ago there were ancient ancestors wild cats Proailurus, which formed the Noefelids, Pseudaelurus, and Palaeofelids groups. From Noefelids descended saber-toothed tigers of the genus Smilodon (the most famous) and Homotherium. The predators Dinctus and Barbourifelis originated from the Palaeofelids group. The Noefelids and Palaeofelids groups turned out to be dead ends and became extinct much earlier than 10 million years ago (the exception was the predatory cats Barbourifelis, which crossed this line).

The Pseudaelurus line of predators turned out to be promising, which 10-5 million years ago split into cheetah and cougar (they were the first to separate from the common trunk 10 million years ago), lynxes (separated about 7 and a half million years ago), panthers (5 million years ago). Later, genera of small cats and clouded leopard were formed (4-3 million years ago). Modern species formed after the turn of 1 million years ago.

Ancient finds are represented by single bones. The most fully represented ancient lynx that lived 4 million years ago (Lynx issidorensis). It was larger than modern, had shorter front legs, and longer hind legs.

Blood relatives were 2 million years ago

The jaguar and leopard seem to have had a common ancestor that lived in central Europe over 2 million years ago. Later, the relatives were divided: the leopard began to live in the west of Europe (1 million years ago), and the jaguar at the same time moved across the Bering Isthmus to North America. The jaguars of those times (Panthera onca augusta) were larger and longer-legged than their descendants. 750,000 years ago, they began to decrease in size - adaptation to local climatic conditions and diet. 100,000 years ago, the jaguar took on a form similar to that found today.

The saber-toothed tiger was on his own

Many are mistaken, considering the prehistoric saber-toothed tiger to be the ancestor of modern tigers. They did not have common ancestors. Saber-toothed tigers became extinct before the ancestors of modern tigers appeared.

Saber-toothed tiger Smilodon hunted by a pride

The saber-toothed tiger Smilodon was about the size of an average lion, but its head was very large in proportion to its body. Its tail was short, which allows us to conclude that the saber-toothed tiger did not pursue its prey over long distances, limiting itself to pursuit at short distances. There is evidence that saber-toothed tigers were social animals and hunted in packs, much like a pride of lions now hunts.

Tiger ancestors lived 2 million years

Back in Central Asia and China and were distributed both in the west and in the east of the region from the Caspian Sea to Far East and Primorye. 1 million years ago, giant tigers were still found in China. features of this ancient tiger largely preserved the North Chinese tiger. 250,000 years ago, tigers shrank in size.

Ancestors of the cheetah

... lived in North America 2½ million years ago), and along with the giant cheetah Acinonyx studeri, there was also a small species of Acinonyx trumani (lived 12,000 years ago). The ancestors of the modern cheetah Acinonyx pardinensis from Europe resembled its modern descendant, only surpassed it in size.

Of the panthers, the lion was the first

Of all panther Panthera the lion appeared first, the remains of which date back to 750,000 (West or East Africa). They were larger than modern ones and are considered gigantic. From there, 250,000 years ago, lions spread into North Africa and Europe, where the cave lion (Panthera spelaea) and the Tuscan lion (Tuscany lion) lived in Northern Italy and the Balkans. From Asia, lions crossed into North America and formed a species (Panthera atrox), which spread as far south as Peru. 100,000 years ago, ancient lions died out, never being able to adapt to changing climatic conditions.

This predator met during the Pleistocene throughout North America (including Alaska), as well as in the north of South America. It reached a length of 3.5 m. It had sharp retractable claws and sharp teeth (shorter than other relatives). Other subspecies of the American lion are found in different parts Africa and Western India.

Giant armadillo

The giant armadillo that lived in the Pleistocene had a body length of 4 m; lived in South America.

The rabbit that lived 55 million years ago

Fossilized remains of the most ancient rabbit in the world were found in Mongolia. Gomphos elkema, lived 55 million years ago and is considered the most ancient ancestor of the modern rabbit. It is believed that it moved in much the same way as a modern rabbit, jumping with the help of elongated hind legs. Despite the obvious similarities, gomphos differed from modern rabbits in several ways. Yes, he had a very long tail, and some of the teeth looked more like the teeth of a squirrel than a rabbit.

Mesozoic badger ate dinosaurs

Badger-like animal Repenomamus giganticus, was the size of a large dog, over one meter in length. This is one of the most large mammals mesozoic era. Its jaw is the size of a fox's jaw. Inside the skeleton of this animal, which lived about 130 million years ago in northern China, scientists have discovered a small skeleton of a baby dinosaur. Probably Repenomamus giganticus ate dinosaurs. The ancient badger, most likely, tore the victim apart and swallowed in large pieces. This theory is confirmed by the fact that a mammal, in the presence of sharp incisors, lacks molars, and its sharp teeth are intended for something completely different - for tearing apart and eating other animals. Although he could also eat plants and insects.

The oldest primates

Unmarked monkey (May 1979) found at Padaung, Burma, estimated to be 40,000,000 years old; a lemur found in Madagascar, estimated to be 70,000,000 years old; tarsier-like primate found in Indonesia, estimated to be 70,000,000 years old.

giant sloth

The giant sloth Megatherium, which lived in the Pleistocene, had a body length of 7 m; he lived in South America, it was a land animal.

Beavers were the most
Paleontologists have long believed that the mammals that lived alongside dinosaurs were animals similar to tiny shrews. Meanwhile, a fossil of a beaver-like mammal that lived 164 million years ago has been found. The semi-aquatic mammal had a body length of about half a meter and a weight of 500 g, resembling partly a platypus, partly an otter and partly a beaver. This animal is the largest among its kind, and belong to the Jurassic period (from 200 to 145 million years ago).

primitive whales

Fossils of primitive whales, zeuglodonts ("jugular-toothed"), have been found in marine sediments in Africa, Europe, New Zealand, Antarctica, and North America. Some of them were giants over 20 meters long.

Which mammal was the ancestor of modern cetaceans?

Very few fossils have been collected on this subject. Perhaps these were primitive creodont predators, perhaps ungulates, but most likely ancient insectivores, from which cetaceans, predators, and ungulates branched off. Each of these concepts has its own arguments.

The ancestors of whales are ungulates
Some scientists consider cetaceans to be the ancestors of ungulates, since both have a multi-chambered stomach, multi-lobed kidneys, a bicornuate uterus, similar chemical composition blood and there are common features in the structure of the reproductive system (placenta, device and position of the penis, as well as the short duration of copulation), in the structure of the molecule of insulin and myoglobin, and in indicators of the reaction of precipitation of blood proteins.

The ancestors of whales are predators
Other researchers are looking for cetacean ancestors among creodont predators, guided by the structure of the skull and the characteristics of the dental system. Primitive cetaceans had heterodont (various in shape) teeth, sagittal and occipital crests, and zygomatic processes of the skull, to some extent similar to those of creodont predators (hyenodonts).

The ancestors of whales are insectivorous
Based on the analysis of fossil remains, modern paleontologists are more inclined to believe that ancient cetaceans were related to very early placental, that is, the most ancient insectivores, and probably originated in the Late Cretaceous, even before the orders of ungulates and carnivores branched off from them. 70 million years ago, the terrestrial ancestors of cetaceans moved into the water.

Perhaps no animal in the world has been so offended as an elephant. These giant herbivores are the largest inhabitants of the land, but? Almost nothing. Let's start with what many mistakenly attribute to elephants as a mammoth ancestor. But this is fundamentally wrong. Mammoths, mastodons and elephants are completely different families. And who is included in the elephant family? Let's figure it out.

1 Erytherium (60 million years ago)

The ancient ancestors of elephants were by no means such giants. Yes, and their trunk was only in outline. The very first pro-elephant that scientists discovered was erytherium. A completely small animal weighed up to 5 kilograms. It was possible to identify it only by separate fragments of the jaw, but that was enough, because it is the teeth that are the hallmark of the proboscis.

2 Phosphatherium (57 million years ago)

Phosphatherium is next in the line of great-great-great of our gray giants. And it is already noticeably larger: according to those fragments that have been preserved from the distant times of its existence, one can determine the height (no more than 30 cm) and weight (up to 17 kg). Scientists came to the conclusion that the animal was omnivorous.

3 Meriterium (35 million years ago)

A semi-aquatic animal that lived along the edges of water bodies is a meriterium, which already has the beginnings of a trunk and long divided incisors, from which elephant tusks are then formed. And yes, they were larger - they weighed up to 250 kg, and reached 1.5 meters at the withers.

4 Barytherium (28 million years ago)

Height up to three meters, with a large skull and rather developed fangs sticking out from under the nose-trunk - if you met with barytherium, he would definitely frighten you. What were the fangs worth, from which in the future tusks will develop, protruding from both the lower and upper jaws - obviously not only for getting food!

5 Paleomastadons (28 million years ago)

Around the same time, paleomastodons lived and died out. They were distinguished by obvious elephantine features: the structure of the body, the skull, the presence of tusks, which were no longer involved in chewing. On the lower jaw, they were spade-shaped, scientists suspect that animals used them to get food in top layer earth.

6 Deinotherium (17 million years ago)

Strictly speaking, whether Deinotherium was the ancestor of the elephant, scientists are not sure. It may well be that this is just a separate branch of evolution that has not survived to this day (but early people saw it, because deinotherium disappeared 2 million years ago). Well, the animals were terrible: with tusks bent down, a huge trunk, a massive (up to 1.2 m skull), up to 4.5 meters high!

7 Platybelodon (15 million years ago)

Another representative of the proboscis on the way to modernity acquired formidable tusks sticking forward and a powerful lower jaw with spade teeth. Platybelodons lived, as they say now, everywhere: in America, Eurasia and Africa.

8 Gomphotherium (3.6 million years ago)

Add sharp tusks on the lower jaw to a modern Indian cutie elephant, straighten the ones on the upper jaw, and you get a gomphotherium. And he doesn't look so friendly anymore. From modern elephants, the tusks of gomphotheres differed in that they had real tooth enamel!

9 Stegodons (2.6 million years ago)

Height 4 meters, length 8 meters + 3 meters of tusks make these extinct proboscis one of the largest ancestors of elephants. The last specimens survived on the island of Flores until 12 thousand years ago in dwarf form, where hobbits were found (Florentine man). The species is so close to modern that the elephants of the Bardia Park still show the features of stegodons.

10 Primelfasy (2.6 million years ago)

And finally, we come to the closest relative of elephants - in fact, this is his ancestor, primelfas, or "first elephant". It was he who gave rise to the branches of elephants, mammoths and mastodons. On the modern elephant, meanwhile, he was not very similar, since he had four tusks, but what can you do, all the same - relatives.

Reading the article will take: 4 min.

Among the land animals of the Earth, one creature stands out in every way - size, imposing body, huge ears and a strange nose, very similar to a fire hydrant hose. If among the living creatures of the zoo there is at least one creation of the elephant family (and we are talking about them, as you may have guessed), then this enclosure is especially popular with visitors, young and old. I decided to understand the genealogy of elephants, calculate their most distant ancestor, and in general, understand “who is who” among the eared and equipped with a trunk. And this is what I came up with...

It turns out that elephants, mastodons and mammoths, as well as pinnipeds dugongs and manatees had a common ancestor - moriterium (lat. Moeritherium). Outwardly, the moriteriums that inhabited the Earth about 55 million years ago were not even close to their modern descendants - undersized, no higher than 60 cm at the withers, they lived in shallow water bodies of Asia of the late Eocene and were something in between pygmy hippopotamus and a pig, with a narrow and elongated muzzle.

Now about the direct ancestor of elephants, mastodons and mammoths. Their common ancestor was a paleomastodon (lat. Palaeomastodontidae), which inhabited Africa about 36 million years ago, in the Eocene. In the mouth of the paleomastodon was a double set of tusks, but they were short - it probably fed on tubers and roots.

No less interesting, in my opinion, a relative of modern eared and proboscis was a funny animal, nicknamed by scientists Platibelodon (lat. Platibelodon danovi). This creature inhabited Asia in the Miocene, about 20 million years ago, had one set of tusks and strange spade-shaped incisors on the lower jaw. Platybelodon actually did not have a trunk, but its upper lip was wide and “corrugated” - somewhat similar to the trunk of modern elephants.

It's time to deal with more or less widely well-known representatives proboscis families - mastodons, mammoths and elephants. First of all, they are distant relatives, i.e. two modern look elephants - African and Indian - did not descend from a mammoth or a mastodon. The body of mastodons (lat. Mammutidae) was covered with thick and short hair, they ate mostly grass and shrub foliage, spread in Africa during the Oligocene - about 35 million years ago.

Contrary to feature films, where the mastodon is usually depicted as an aggressive giant elephant with huge tusks, they were not larger than the modern African elephant: growth at the withers is no more than 3 meters; there were two sets of tusks - a pair of long ones on the upper jaw and short ones, practically not protruding from the mouth, on the lower. Subsequently, the mastodons completely got rid of a pair of lower tusks, leaving only the upper ones. Mastodons completely died out not so long ago, if you look from the point of view of anthropology - only 10,000 years ago, i.e. our distant ancestors were well acquainted with this type of proboscis.

Mammoths (lat. Mammuthus) - those very shaggy, proboscis and with giant tusks, the remains of which are often found in Yakutia - inhabited the Earth on several continents at once, and they lived big family happily ever after 5 million years, disappearing about 12-10,000 years ago. They were much larger than modern elephants - 5 meters tall at the withers, huge, 5-meter tusks, slightly twisted in a spiral. Mammoths lived everywhere - in South and North America, in Europe and Asia, they easily endured ice ages and protected themselves from predators, but could not cope with human bipedal ancestors, who diligently reduced their population throughout the globe. Although the main reason for their complete and widespread extinction, scientists still consider the last ice age caused by the fall of a huge meteorite in South America.

Today, there are two types of elephants that are relatively alive - African and Indian. African elephants (lat. Loxodonta africana) with a maximum weight of 7.5 tons and a height of 4 meters at the withers live south of the African Sahara desert. Just one representative of this family in the first image for this article.

Indian elephants (lat. Elephas maximus) with a weight of 5 tons and a height of 3 meters at the withers are common in India, Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, Laos and Sumatra. The tusks of Indian elephants are much shorter than those of their African relatives, with females having no tusks at all.

Elephant skull (varnished, sort of)

By the way, it was the skulls of mammoths, regularly discovered by ancient Greek researchers, that formed the basis of the legends about giant cyclops - most often there were no tusks on these skulls (nimble Africans stole for construction purposes), and the skull itself was very similar to the remains of a colossal cyclops. Pay attention to the hole in the frontal part of the skull, with which the trunk is connected in living elephants.

Modern types of elephants are only the remnants of the great proboscis family that inhabited planet Earth in the distant past ...

It's no secret to anyone that ancient world unique animals lived, which, unfortunately or fortunately, we were not destined to see. But massive and huge remains testify to the greatness and strength of these mammals. So, in the past, animals adapted to environment, and even individuals of the same species could change under its influence. Many are interested in such a unique mammal as a mastodon. This is an animal from the proboscis squad, which in many ways resembled mammoths, but also had differences from them.

Characteristics of mastodons

In our time, no one thinks that perhaps the mastodon is the brightest ancestor of the ordinary elephant. home common feature animals, of course - the trunk, as well as huge size compared to other inhabitants of the wild. However, it was found that the mastodons were no larger than the elephants that we can see today in zoos or on TV.

Mastodons are considered extinct mammals. They had similar features with other representatives of the proboscis squad, but there were also differences. The main one is that these large mammals had paired nipple-like tubercles on the chewing surface of their molars. And mammoths and elephants had transverse ridges on their molars, which were separated by cement.

Origin of the name "mastodon"

It is interesting that the mastodon is translated from Greek as “nipple”, “tooth”. Therefore, the name of the animal comes from the structural features of its teeth. Note that some individuals had tusks in the lower jaw area, which (according to scientists) were transformed from the second incisors.

Mastodons were considered herbivores, unable to harm any neighbor in a large house called " wild nature". Shrubs were also the main dish of the proboscis squad. However, if the mammals were frightened, they could simply kill a nearby animal with their huge weight as a result of a sudden movement, without wanting to.

Male mastodons

Some scientists are convinced that mastodons did not exceed the growth of an ordinary elephant. The proboscis males could reach three meters at the withers. It is worth noting that they preferred to live separately from the herd, that is, females and their cubs. Their puberty was reached by the age of ten or fifteen. On average, mastodons lived for sixty years.

It is also worth noting that there were different types mammals (the American was described above), and almost all of them were similar. But in fact, mastodons appeared in Africa. It was 35 million years ago. A little later, they moved to Europe, Asia, North and South America.

The mastodon provides for an influential figure, something big, for example, the mastodon of business, the mastodon of literature), unlike the elephant, had tusks in the upper and lower jaws. A little later, the appearance of the proboscis squad changed, and the number of fangs decreased to one pair. Scientists have found that about 10 thousand years ago. There were about twenty of them.

One of the versions of the extinction of mastodons was the infection of mammals with tuberculosis. But after their disappearance, they were not forgotten. Scientists are constantly studying bones, tusks of mastodons, making new discoveries and delving into the history of unique mammals. In 2007, the animal's DNA was examined from its teeth. The study proved that the remains of the mastodon were from 50 to 130 thousand years old.

Thus, the mastodon is a unique and not fully understood large mammal, which walked the earth tens of thousands of years ago and was considered one of the most benevolent animals. It is proved that over time they began to eat grass, preferring it to the leaves of trees and shrubs, although their massive tusks were conducive to excellent hunting.

Trogontherian elephant - the ancestor of the mammoth

The trogontherian elephant (Mammuthus trogontherii), also called the steppe mammoth, lived 1.5–0.2 million years ago, and the latest trogontherian elephants lived side by side with mammoths. Trogontherian elephant, mammoth, like modern elephants, belong to the same family of elephantids. The mammoth and trogontherian elephant are very close relatives, as mammoths are descended from trogontherian elephants. Moreover, trogontherian elephants, apparently, were also the ancestors of American mammoths.

Trogontherian elephants 1.5 million years ago lived in North Asia, where it was not as cold as it is now, and then from this area they spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere, even reached Central China and Spain.

Mammoths lived in Eurasia and North America - after all, in those days there was an isthmus on the site of the Bering Strait, and it existed for a very long time. From time to time (for 30-40 thousand years) it was closed by the glacier of the American Arctic shield and, apart from birds, no one could get to America and back. When the glacier melted, the way was opened for other living beings. At the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene era (more than 500 thousand years ago), the ancestors of mammoths - trogontherian elephants, apparently penetrated into North America, settled there and descended from them american mammoths. This is a separate branch of mammoth elephants. Their scientific name- Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). Later, in the late Pleistocene epoch (70 thousand years ago), the mammoth itself (woolly mammoth - Mammuthus primigenius) also entered North America from Siberia, and both species of mammoths lived side by side in America.

The remains of mammoths allow you to determine what he lived, what he ate, what the mammoth was sick with. The bones of mammals are a "matrix" on which there are traces of growth, diseases, individual age, injuries, etc. For example, only from the bones of mammoth cubs from the Sevsk locality (Bryansk region) it was found that mammoth cubs at birth were 35-40% smaller than cubs of modern elephants, but during the first 6-8 months of life they grew so fast that they overtook the children of their modern relatives. Then growth slowed down again. This suggests that in the winter, which just began at the 6-7th month of the life of a newborn mammoth, he ate worse, his mother could no longer feed him with milk. Therefore, the mammoth began to eat the same food as adults. Erasing the teeth of mammoth cubs confirms this. In mammoths, the teeth of the first shifts began to wear out and wear out much earlier than in the cubs of modern elephants.

A group of mammoths from Sevsk most likely died as a result of a very strong flood that cut off their exit from the river valley, and this happened at the very beginning of spring. River sediments, in which there were bones, show how the strength of the current gradually weakened and in the end the place where the corpses of mammoths remained turned first into an old woman, and then into a swamp.

Living beings are born, mature and die. If nothing happened to nature around, so many generations replace each other, year after year, century after century. But if something changes, it gets colder or vice versa hotter, living beings either adapt to these changes or die out. Extinctions of living beings due to catastrophes are extremely rare events. The existence of one or another group of extinct living beings ended for various reasons...

The reasons for the extinction of mammoths are associated with climate change. Mammoth and man lived on the Russian Plain side by side for more than 30 thousand years and no extermination occurred. Only after the climate change that began at the end of the Pleistocene period did the mammoth die out. Now the hypothesis that the huge heaps of mammoth bones from Paleolithic sites are not the result of hunting, but traces of the collection of mammoth bones from natural localities, is becoming more widespread. These bones were needed as raw materials for the manufacture of tools and much more. Of course, a man hunted mammoths, but there were no tribes that would be engaged in specialized hunting for them. The biology of the mammoth is such that it could not be the basis of human life, the main commercial species there were horses, bison, reindeer and other animals of the Ice Age.

Of course, our ancestors hunted, since the ancestors of people refused to feed on grass more than 3 million years ago - this is not a productive path of evolution. But Australopithecus followed this path and in the African savannas they grazed in the meadows along with the ancient baboons - geladas and antelopes, but died out when the climate in Africa became more arid.

In order for a person to eat someone, he must first be caught. The ancient man had only one device for this - his brain. Using this "tool", a person gradually improved his tools and hunting techniques. Without tools and weapons, a person has no chance to catch another animal. The history of the human race is very long and shows that it was not always possible to successfully find food for oneself. Yes, we have to admit that ancient people also ate the corpses of animals, at least in the earliest stages of human history, including the mammoth ...